Those Graces
by Remy2
Summary: Buffy and Spike, post-After Life vignette. A strange friendship has been formed.


  
SPOILERS: "Afterlife"  
SUMMARY: The de rigueur, post-Afterlife, B/S-ship-writer, fic. Been here, done this? Well, it's a requirement that each and every B/S shipper write one, so...read anyways. :)  
FEEDBACK: Does Gachnar need Miracle Grow? That was lame.  
DISCLAIMER: Count von Whedon owns it all. I'm just a poor serf with too many thoughts in her head.  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Wow, this is short...conflicting. Sad, but not sad. I don't know, blame Mike and his Hard Lemonade. This actually started out as a full-length, Spike-centric, angst piece. But those are so depressing, eh? The ep was sad enough...  
  
  
THOSE GRACES  
  
  
She's not making much sense these days. He wishes she'd stop feeling sorry for herself. He'll never say it, never admit to thinking it, he'll just scatter and unscatter and pretend like the rest of them, but he'll never say it. Some things are better left unsaid.  
  
She whispers, "This is hell."  
  
And he loves her so much he doesn't know how to tell her she's wrong. He wishes she'd shut up, because with every word she's making him want to tear her head off.   
  
He'd do it, too. So she could go back. She wouldn't even have to ask.  
  
She says she was complete. He wishes he was complete. He wants to rip apart his unfinished puzzle and give her the pieces, so she can rebuild herself. A piece for security and a piece for the love she doesn't think she can feel and a piece for the wit she can't remember having. Tiny pieces that wouldn't even fit - but they could take up space, fill in her holes.   
  
Here, have my arm. It'll make you feel better.  
  
"I'm sorry," he says. And this time it's not about the guilt of falling off a tower. She stares at him blankly; his does this too often. "I want to be mad and sad and I want to hate her for doing this to you, and sometimes maybe I do, but other times...I can't take my eyes off you, y'know?"  
  
She nods because it still hurts to talk, sometimes. "Giles...he, uh..." And then she stops and he can't quite follow her gaze. She just...stops.  
  
"Yeah," he replies not quite knowing what to say; she does this too often. "I--"  
  
"He said...something...like that."  
  
"Does he know?"  
  
She shakes her head and it almost goes unperceived. But he knows what to look for. He knows to stop expecting words, heartfelt statements proclaiming unsated desires, explanations of the pretty watercolor pictures that Dawn paints in art class or the cool show about manatees she watched on Animal Planet yesterday or the new boots she bought or the things she cooked for dinner last night and how she hates cooking dinner. These things have no place in language; they're so pointless at times. All the time.  
  
He doesn't know why she told him. Why she *only* told him. But he *does* understand, and he has a part in the play, now, so he keeps his thoughts to himself most of the time. He doesn't lecture her on the lackluster of peace, the adrenaline of chaos, the way everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. He chose eternal life over eternal serenity in a paradise, and he chose it without thinking twice, because he was dying and because he wanted to die, but mostly because he *didn't* want to die. And he *must* be right, he *has* to be right, or else he is nothing and he has nowhere to go, because then he'd be wrong and...He. Just. Isn't. Wrong.  
  
"I think...I think they should know, Buffy. The truth."  
  
"I can't. They'd...hate me...for lying to them. They'd hate themselves."  
  
"They deserve to know, they deserve the guilt. They did something very, very wrong. And you can't let them go on believing they were right."  
  
She stands and she's going to leave and he's going to let her.  
  
On her way out the door he whispers, "I'd...I'd kill you if I could."  
  
She just smiles and he doesn't really know what to think about that; and then she laughs, which takes him so completely by surprise that he starts laughing, too. "That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me."   
  
And then she's gone. 


End file.
